What's the Importance of Motivation?

What Does Raising Healthy Kids Have to Do with Free College?

Recently I received a message from a doctor friend I met on Twitter. We follow each other, and share an interest in improving our health, and that of others. Here’s what she wrote, “You have a lot of good tips for making eating healthy easier. You should share them on a blog,” Dr. Kristie Leong.

Another friend, one I’ve known offline for several years, sent me this message shortly thereafter, “I agree with Kristie. Your healthy eating tips go well with your theme of helping kids do well in school and earn scholarships,” Deborah Dian.

I respect both of these ladies, but didn’t want to start a second blog. As an alternative, I’ve added a page of simple ways to raise healthy kids to my roadtofreecollege.com blog. I’ve titled the page, Raising Healthy Kids. Every few days, I’ll add more tips to the page to encourage children to eat right and stay fit, so they’ll be able to follow the sixteen defining habits of successful scholarship winners and earn lots of free cash for college.

Every so often, I’ll write an entire blog post about one of the tips. I’ll go more in depth, and show parents what they can do to help their children stay healthy by eating right, sleeping enough and staying fit. There will also be suggestions of ways parents can build their children’s self-esteem, which is so vital to success in school, college and beyond. I’ve included some of the tips I’ve posted already below.

Easy Tips:

Adding one more veg to dinner, and reducing the size of your meat portion is a simple change every family can make to improve health.  


We should all adopt a physical activity we enjoy. It could be a sport, hiking, dancing, swimming, or something else. Share it with your kids, so they'll grow up with this healthy habit. 


Look at lists of healthy plant slant foods and recipes, and make your shopping list from the foods they contain. @BlueZones post them often on Facebook and Twitter. 


Let kids pick one new veg at the supermarket or Farmer's Market to try each week. They're more likely to try a "special" food they selected. 


Write down everything you ate and drank and hour before you had digestive issues. Do this for your kids too. Playing detective helps identify food allergies and intolerances. 


Recently I learned exercise keeps our arteries flexible, which is a good thing. That’s reason enough to make sure your kids get up and move around the house or outside every thirty minutes or so. No more playing video games without breaks. 


Gardening is a great family tradition to establish. Teaching kids where food comes from makes them more likely to eat their vegetables.


Poor health is a good reason to stop buying foods that contribute to it. Filling up your shopping list with healthy fruit, vegetables, beans and whole grains leaves little room for junk.


Did you know pistachios contain resveratrol, just like red wine? So your kids can snack on pistachios while you enjoy a glass of your favorite cabernet. You'll both benefit from this healthy compound, which fights damage to our bodies on a cellular level.

You’re reading from the blog: https://www.roadtofreecollege.com/

Photo credit: Google Images 

If you’re interested in learning more about helping your children succeed, you can follow me on Twitter, @ElizaWallace27 or click on the image of my book, Free College, in the top right corner of this page. You'll be taken to Amazon, where you can read more about my book, and buy it now.

What Is The Value of Ability?

How Teachers Help Students Avoid Needing College Loans

When I first started teaching, few of the students who graduated from the school where I worked went on to college. This included my foreign language students. I knew for them to do well after high school graduation, something had to change. I started slipping reasons for going to college into our conversations. A hint here, a hint there, the idea eventually took hold.

I started putting up a poster each January and encouraged all seniors to list their post-graduation plans for everyone to see. This had a positive impact on all of my students. After a couple of years of doing this, I noticed all my seniors listed college as their destination. As college prices increased to absurd levels, I began informing my students of ways to avoid college debt. Some students were better at this than others. I wondered what they did that made the difference.

After doing a great deal of research, I put together a questionnaire. I distributed it widely and also solicited comments. It became clear those who received the most scholarship money had several habits in common. I wrote my book, Free College using this information. In addition to listing the sixteen successful strategies, I explain them and the results I saw for each. I suggest ways families could adopt them as well. The families and/or students who were better at practicing these habits received more scholarship money than those who only followed some of them. Those who completed them all received Full-Ride Scholarships.

I feel it’s vital to make this information public. I want it known by families everywhere. This way, everyone will be aware of what to do to avoid college loans. College debt is difficult to pay off, and becomes a monster that follows students for years, if not for life. My book is available on Amazon, click on the book cover in the top right corner of this page, to buy it now. If you have Pre-K through High School students in your life, my book will show you how they can graduate from college debt free. 

You’re reading from the blog: http://www.roadtofreecollege.com

Photo credit: Google Images 

If you’re interested in learning more about helping your children, you can follow me on Twitter, @ElizaWallace27 or click on the image of my book, Free College, in the top right corner of this page. You'll be taken to Amazon, where you can read more about my book, and buy it now.

Photo: My book cover

How Do People See Past Your Words?

Tips for Raising Healthy Kids

Did you know pistachios contain resveratrol, just like red wine? So your kids can snack on pistachios while you enjoy a glass of your favorite cabernet. You'll both benefit from this healthy compound, which fights damage to our bodies on a cellular level. 

What You Should Do, If Your High School Doesn’t Have a College Counselor

Every high school where I’ve taught has had at least one counselor who was an expert in “all things college”. What do you do if your high school doesn’t have such a person? I recommend you take a look at Free $ For College For Dummies by David Rosen and Caryn Mladen. Click HERE  to get a copy.

It won’t help you become the ideal college scholarship applicant, like my book, Free College. It will, however, help you through the process of finding and applying for scholarships. It consists of twenty-four chapters containing important details you need to know. I wasn’t sure if my grandson’s high school in another state had an expert on campus to help him, so I sent him a copy of this book when he started his junior year.

The book is like having a mentor walk you through the process. It can’t nag you to complete forms on time, of course, but it does give you a timeline to follow. The first four chapters include an overview of the process of finding free money. It explains what you can expect and how to avoid scams, (yes, as we have seen on the news lately, there are con men out there).

The second section of the book helps you optimize what you can receive from the federal government. Although there’s more than $46 billion in grants and scholarships available annually, over $2.9 billion in free college federal grant money went unclaimed last year. Read these chapters carefully, so you don’t miss out. This section also helps you avoid problems with the Internal Revenue Service. There’s a right way and a wrong way to report money received, do it right, so you don’t have problems.

Section three goes into finding money from the state in which you live. Like with the feds, there are grants and scholarships available. Free cash for college exists on a local level too. This part of the book helps you go after this money.

Next, you’ll learn how to negotiate with colleges for a lower tuition. Just like with cars, it's possible to pay less than the sticker price. Plus, you can apply for merit, athletic and even international scholarships from the college itself. All of these, naturally, must be appropriate for your student. As with the recent college admission scandal, students and parents who try to scam the system end up in trouble, and might even go to jail.

Lots more scholarships can be unearthed from private and public organizations. The next section of the book explains how to find them. Some are obvious, like charitable and fraternal organizations, unions, and the military. The last section of this chapter includes a resource guide for finding more obscure scholarships.

The final four chapters of Free $ For College For Dummies explains what else you can do, as well as what you should avoid while looking for ways to pay for college. Whatever you do, avoid taking out student loans. They can't be forgiven in bankruptcy, will follow you everywhere, and often grow so large, you’ll never be able to pay them off. I know people in their seventies who have student loan repayments taken involuntarily from their monthly social security benefits. Whether you buy this book, or mine, do whatever you can to avoid student loan debt.

You’re reading from the blog: http://www.roadtofreecollege.com

Photo credit: Google Images 

If you’re interested in learning more about helping your children, you can follow me on Twitter, @ElizaWallace27 or click on the image of my book, Free College, at the top right corner of this page. You'll be taken to Amazon, where you can read more about my book, and buy it now.